I'm liking Tulsi Gabbard.

American primary season is upon us. Order the popcorn and sit back! This election cycle, it’s the Democrats who are tearing lumps out of each other. Their ridiculously large field of candidates makes the 17 Republicans Trump put to the sword four years ago seem positively miniscule. At the last count there were about four hundred and twenty two Democrats with their hat in the ring to be their party’s presidential nominee. In fact, I’m not sure there isn’t even a write in campaign for Tim Robson.

Given the continual resistance against Trump since November 2016 - in the media, in Congress, in the courts, on social media, one would imagine that all the Democrats needed to do is select a half decent moderate candidate, avoid saying anything stupid and the 2020 race is in the bag.

However, it appears the Democrats have decided to go another way. Yes, they’ve boarded the clown car to unelectable far leftism and pumped the pedal as far as it goes. Apart from Biden, the front runners - Warren, Sanders, Booker, Harris are all streaking down the back-straight in a race to be the most voter repelling radical. It’s an unedifying spectacle. Add to this the media focus on AOC and the other three unlovely members of ‘The Squad’ and one might collude that the centrist - and election winning - party of JFK and Bill Clinton was dead.

Because, there’s a place for a centre left party in America. One that looks after normal patriotic ‘middle class’ Americans who want to work hard, save and put their kids through college. Trump captured this forgotten ‘middle class’ in 2016. They’re not Republicans but he spoke to them about putting jobs and the US first. But, seemingly the Dems have learnt nothing from their 2016 defeat. Apparently it was the Russians. Therefore, they continually bang on about open borders, free healthcare for illegal immigrants, transgender rights and third trimester abortions.

All arguable positions perhaps, but, as Bill Clinton’s successful campaign in ‘91 proved, ‘it’s the economy, stupid!’. Take the rhetoric and tweets away from Trump and underneath there’s solid successes. The US economy is roaring ahead and this rising tide is proving uncomfortable for Democrats as the people who are benefitting, in record numbers, are their own supposed client base - blacks, hispanics, women. One would have thought the Democrats would notice this and try and offer something to the middle classes other than futile attempts to subvert the electoral process and impeach the president.

The CNN debate last week was divided into two so as to accommodate all the vast horde of candidates. Everyone got their chance to perform their crazy dance in the spotlight. Four years ago the Republicans were more ruthless but better organised - they had a primetime debate consisting of the leading candidates and an undercard of the no-hopers. The Dems should try to emulate this.

Anyway in the second debate, the strident and not very likeable Kamala Harris was pitched against Joe Biden. She’d duffed him up pretty disgracefully in the first debate with some low blows by essentially calling him a racist. Quite despicable. I remember her in the Brett Kavanaugh hearings being similarly disreputable. What an awful, virtual signalling and humourless woman! A machine politician if ever there was one. And how very typical she’s a (self declared) top tier candidate in today’s Democratic Party.

And then step forward Tulsi Gabbard, the Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii. She’s a familiar sight to Republicans as she - unlike most elected Democrats - actually goes onto Fox News for interviews. She seems to hold the rather radical notion that to get elected you have to appeal to broad swathes of people who don’t necessarily agree with you. She’s also an ex soldier with tours of duty in Iraq. This means she abhors war and wants to avoid them at all cost. I supported Ron and Rand Paul over this very issue in the past and Trump’s instincts (if not always reality) are anti war. I have a lot of time for her point of view. She’s also pretty easy on the eye too which doesn’t hurt.

But back to the debate. Kamala Harris was virtue signalling versus Biden again when the moderator brought in Tulsi. And in the next minute or so Gabbard tore Harris a new one and bitchslapped her into oblivion. She questioned Harris’ record as California Attorney General, brought up hypocrisies and scandals (though not the ‘how did Camilla get started’ scandal). Unprepared and caught off guard Harris blustered but you could see in her face and posture she’d been owned on live TV. A delicious moment where a dreadful bully got the beat down she deserved.

Go Tulsi! Although Trump supporters are loyal to their Donald, they could probably live with her as Commander in Chief.

And isn’t that really what democracy is about? It’s not the winning that matters, it’s the grace in defeat that is essential for a civil society to function. And I’m hoping that whosoever wins next time, the losers will accept the defeat. The Democrats have behaved disgracefully this time around. I don’t want that to happen again. Let’s step back from the edge.

That’s why I’m backing Tulsi in the Democratic primaries.

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See video below. Tulsi comes in at 3:40 after Harris talks her poison against Biden.

In Praise of the USA

“O God the Lord, the strength of my salvation, thou hast covered my head in the day of battle.”

— Psalm 140 (KJV)

There's a strain of European opinion that looks down on the USA. They assume superiority in a sneering de haut en bas manner which never fails to infuriate me. With Donald Trump legitimately elected to the White House they can now indulge this awful vice even more vociferously (witness the pathetic demonstrations against Trump in London this summer as real dictators and thugs get the red carpet treatment with no protestations).

How short is the memory...

It was only 1989 that the Berlin Wall came down and that shred by shred the Iron Curtain was ripped away, an iron curtain, lest we forget that had held half of Europe in terror and prison camps for forty years (2018 is the 50th anniversary of the brutal suppression of the Prague Spring  and the 70th anniversary of the communist take over of Czechoslovakia.) Does anyone know this? Or care? 

But what forced the eventual emancipation of Eastern Europe? Sure, Western Europe banded together into NATO, and one mustn't forget our own Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher, but it was the muscle and power and success of capitalism of the US that won the Cold War. Ultimately it was Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush and the resolve of all Americans, Democrat or Republican - people and Congress - that defeated this evil cult, communism and freed Eastern Europe. We should thank them more for this salvation from evil.

Omaha Beach, May 2018. Many Americans died here for the freedom of Europe from Nazis

So this year, I went to Normandy around the start of June as I always do. The residents of Normandy remember the mighty battle here in 1944 every year with a solemn punctiliousness that is moving. It's here, and maybe nowhere else in France, they remember the sacrifices of the US (and the UK and Canada) in liberating Europe. Driving down the Contentin peninsula in late May, I called in at Omaha Beach, scene of the most bloody fighting on D-Day (as graphically dramatised in Saving Private Ryan). It was here that American boys stormed the beach under heavy fire. Between 2000 and 5000 never got off the beach. It was a slaughter. But American grit and numbers got them through, eventually. Nazi Europe had been breached.

I took photos. My daughter asked me why I was taking pictures of the lone American flag fluttering above the beach as all around coach parties of solemn Americans wandered silently. I turned my face away, tears probably more than glistening. 

What could I say? That 74 years before, thousands of Americans (and their Canadian and British counterparts) stormed these very tranquil sands of this coastline to liberate Europe - the Europe now occupied by the smug EU - from fascism. Real fascism. Real Nazis. Killing people in gas chambers fascism. Torture and death of political opponents fascism. The killing of dissidents Nazis. 

Yes, the real bad guys (with the communists) of recent history.

And we now get people on the streets in the UK (and the USA regrettably) - ignorant of the sacrifice of young American boys on the beaches of France or the resolve of the US against the horror of communism -  shouting that their current US political opponents in democratic elections are fascists. Or Nazis.

Fucking idiots. Learn some history.

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Battle Hymn of the Republic

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Into the Hopper

“Great art is the outward expression of an inner life in the artist, and this inner life will result in his personal vision of the world.”

— Edward Hopper

Although my writing often uses allusion and metaphor my most common technique is reference. The deliberate triggering of emotion or intellect by forms of words and experiences with which the reader may be familiar, perhaps unknowingly.  Sometimes my references pass people by, but they are there, hidden beneath the surface, like buried treasures. Music, films, history, ancient texts, The Bible nestle side-by-side. My prose is deceptively simple but is buttressed by those that went before.

Visually, I'm quite literal. I could be dismissed - and often am - as hating all art that doesn't have a semblance of reality. But this literalism can hide artifice and subtext (pre-Raphaelites, anyone?). The framing, the subject, the angle, the deliberate manipulation of scene, emotion and place that an artist consciously puts into a painting is as important as the form.*

So, in this spirit, let me introduce my favourite artist, Edward Hopper. In my lounge, along with framed LP covers, two Hoppers hang, facing each other. On one wall is:-

New York Movie Theatre (1939)

This is faced by:-

Nighthawks (1942)

Within these two you get pretty much quintessential Hopper. The very strong sense of place, mood, of images being presented full on but still hiding much. I mean, what is the usherette thinking in the Movie Theatre picture? But also, it reveals the human element behind life which I like. It's the deliberate panning back in order to highlight the trivial. All life is affected by mood, emotion, secrets. There is surface and there is stuff going on underneath. Hopper is about these things. It's not happy.

So Hopper is a realist but his paintings always convey a mood, hint at a story, scratch the surface of deep emotions. These are the sorts of paintings where you can sit in front of them in an art gallery, scratch your chin and speculate on what the artist meant. 'Gas' pictured above is very much like this. A solitary garage on a little used road, closes for the night as the shadows from the evening and the forest close in.  It's lonely, suggestive, oppressive even,

Let me give you a couple more favourites:

Automat (1927)

I suppose an early fore-runner of Nighthawks. Who is she? Why is she on her own? Questions. Questions.

Cape Cod Evening (1939)

The grass, the sinister trees again. The man and woman pensive (argument, loss, waiting something), the dog!

But I've entertained you enough, I feel. Hopper's my man with the brushes. But it's a personal thing. Shared by millions.

So long, farewell, auf weidersehn.

Tim

* I could bore for Britain on my views of the duty of the artist. Or the freewill of the artist. How selection and viewpoint is as much a part of the artistic palette as skill, technique, form. But also serendipity.

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RIP Charmain Carr who died this week. Remember her this way. I think somewhere we're all 16 going on 17.

Between West Street and Bleecker Street

“I saw a shadow touch a shadow’s hand. On Bleecker Street.”

— Paul Simon - Bleecker Street

When I first went to New York, American Express put me up at The Marriott on West Street. After a hard day in the office I would ask my colleagues out for a beer. And sometimes they would oblige... For a beer. One beer. Before departing for New Jersey. Leaving me alone in New York.

The Marriott on West Street is down at the bottom of Manhattan Island, all skyscrapers, bustling with life during the day but dead after work. What to do? On my first trip to New York?

Letting art be my guide, I summoned a yellow taxi and told the cabbie to take me to Bleecker Street. Due to the Simon and Garfunkel song, it was the only uptown street I knew. So he took me - circuitously I found later - up to Greenwich Village.

And so I wandered around. Had some beers in 'coffee shops' where I had to get used to putting dollars on the bar before ordering my drink. Lighting up a Marlboro I thought - hey! - this is living. All my idols - Neil Diamond, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, had walked these very streets. All I lacked was my own Suzi Rotolo immortalised on The Freewheeling Bob Dylan:-

Now that image is well known. Less well known is the cover of The Paul Simon Songbook where Paul poses (influenced by Dylan, no doubt) with his then girlfriend Kathy Chitty (of Kathy's Song fame):-

The album cover above is framed and hung in my lounge.

So what does this show? Not much, in the receding view of history. A first time visitor to a great city goes somewhere mentioned in a song. But to me it was real. It was living art. All of my life - then - seemed to be an unwritten novel, a poem - a song, awaiting to be sung.

I suppose life is an ever diminishing version of that little story: The search for the new, the openness of naivety, the finding of oneself, wherever that may be. I suppose we all search for the thrill and expectation I felt during that first taxi ride between West Street and Bleecker Street.

And sometimes we find that feeling. But usually we don't. We all live in between.

Tim

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Thoughts on Trump

If I were to vote in American elections, I'd be severely unhappy. Americans seem to face a choice between an hereditary Bush or an hereditary Clinton. Obama came out of nowhere. He certainly was the first black president and he was so good he secured the Nobel Peace Prize in his first month in office. Yeah. Way to go Barry!

Clearly I'm more on the Republican side than the Democrat. If I lived in the US (and was a citizen) then I'd be a registered Republican. My choice for presidential candidate last time would have been the libertarian Ron Paul. My choice this time would have been his son, Rand Paul. I like the fact that they are so unfashionable they hark back to unyielding founding principles, principles which offend today's society that likes to bend rules based on emotionalism or expediency. I like the fact that both are strict Austrians in economics - no borrowing, currency backed up by real worth, no support for mal-investment, the superiority of the market over political judgement. They also are also anti-war which, as I've written before, is probably one of three or four dominant political characteristics (along with democracy, free speech and capitalism) I believe in.

But both lost. Ron, controversially against Mitt (only in America) and Rand to the force of nature that is Donald Trump. 

Now I didn't follow the Republican debates until about October / November but then - as usual - I was hooked. Okay, they're false formats and candidates with with well scripted (and delivered) one -liners often do best over the more cerebral, reflective candidates. Sorry Jeb! But this is democracy in the raw. America is great at that (though big money is, I admit, a problem).

I became, after Rand's early demise following the New Hampshire primary, fascinated by Trump. And not especially because of what he said, or what he'd do (BTW these two concepts can be very different animals - hello Barry, talking about you, again).

So why's Trump interesting as a phenomenon? 

- He is politically incorrect. I'm fucking tired of people telling me what to think or say. Politicians are scared to say anything controversial these days. This timidity has spread to social media, corporations. How long before this cultural stalinism spreads into the private sphere? It's a deadweight on ideas, thoughts, creativity, laughter. Good manners and civility should be a person's guide. One thing about Trump we can all agree on; he's not politically correct. 

- Trump isn't beholden to vested interests as he self-finances (see the above about campaign finance). I'm not saying that I support rich people only running for office - of course not - but I think America needs a good dose of 'fuck you' juice sprayed at lobbyists. 

- He isn't scripted. He says what he wants. For the antithesis of Trump, see The Marco-bot as he trotted out the same answer four times when challenged by NJ Governor Chris Christie. The career politician - in the US, in the UK - who parrots the party line, eyes closed or focused on the mid distance, gets my goat. I love the mavericks - the Farage, the Livingstone, the Franks Fields. Party politicians - like executives at big companies - always live in fear and slavishly toe the party line.

- He's successful outside politics. Yeah, sure he fronts the American Apprentice but he is also a successful business-man. Now I don't worship businessmen - they need balance - but I prefer them to career politicians or corporate wankers. Businessmen who own their own company know about risk, making decisions and taking accountability. Most politicians do not. They just like to spend other people's money gathered by force.

- He's funny! He is! Watch a speech. Funny goes a long way. Humour is very under-rated. Humour shows to me a real person. Someone who is funny (it's a skill) shows intelligence both intellectual and emotional.

- He might cause a massive re-alignment. Talking to those who are always written off - lower classes, tax payers, the law abiding - might catch on. Sort of a Brexit demographic. He might just bring the whole shit-house down. Good. Democracy is too precious for the parties to think they own it. Fuck 'em! In a democracy, the people are always right.*

- Lastly, and let me just have one trivial reason, his ongoing success pisses off exactly the right people. The BBC, The Guardian, Facebook twats, bien pensants everywhere. His on-going success makes them so incoherently angry it's worth electing Trump just to watch them explode with self righteousness and condescension for their fellow man.**

So this is The Donald without me looking into his policies (and did I mention his unbelievably attractive wife Melania and his daughter Ivanka. No? Whoops just did!).

Shit hair though.

Cheers

Tim

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Notes

* People are always right. This is always true and I don't buy the view that the people are too stupid or will be led astray by populists. However, my own caution to this would be that ordinarily a representative democracy works best and also that there should always be a decent lead up before a populace votes. Otherwise you run the risk of the Facebook-isation of politics (virtue signalling votes as 'likes', short-termism, shallow not contiguous policies).

** As a democrat I've never been more appalled than I have been over the last few days where Facebook emotionalism allies with hard-core and nasty undemocratic forces. What some unthoughtful people on the losing side of referendum. The Guardian, BBC etc (usual suspects) are playing a VERY dangerous game. In a democracy you have to accept an adverse result. To do otherwise leads only to violence and civil war. I never thought I'd write that about Britain and I pray the cry-bullies think about what they are doing and pull back. Not respecting democracy might become a habit which can be learned by all sides. And the denigration of their fellow citizens as stupid is right out of Marx's false consciousness playbook. And we know that dictatorship follows.